Home is where the halim is

Service: generous, friendly and doting

Best dishes: halim, begoon bhorta, beef korma, chicken wings

Vegetarian selections: ample options, included fried pakoras and virtuous stews

Price range: $

Credit cards: all major credit cards

Hours: 4-11 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 1-11 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays

Children: family friendly

Parking: ample

Reservations: unnecessary

Wheelchair access: yes

Smoking: no

Noise level: low

Patio: no

Takeout: yes

Delivery: yes

Address, phone: 4646 Buford Highway, Chamblee. 770-609-8587

Website: purnimabangladeshi.com

SAME CUISINE, MORE OPTIONS

ALPHARETTA

Madras Chettinaad

Madras Chettinaad specializes in cuisine from the Tamil Nadu state in southern India. The restaurant offers the spice-heavy vegetable, seafood and lamb dishes for which the region is known. Recently, it also has added meat dishes popular in northern Indian cuisine.

11:30 a.m.-3 p.m., 5:30-10 p.m. daily. 4305 State Bridge Road, Alpharetta. 678-393-3131, madraschettinaad.com. $-$$

DECATUR

Bhojanic

This popular Indian restaurant has been feeding locals and nearby Emory University students with its delicious and affordable thalis (combination platters) for years. The restaurant also offers catering, which can be coordinated by telephone or through its website.

11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 11:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, closed Sundays. 1363 Clairmont Road, Decatur. 404-633-9233, bhojanic.com. $-$$

ATLANTA

Panahar

The food at Panahar is influenced by the cuisine of Bangladesh in southern Asia. According to the restaurant, the menu boasts fish, lamb, chicken, beef, goat and vegetables, all of which can be prepared and adjusted to suit a customer’s palate.

11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., 5:30-10:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays, closed Mondays. 3375 Buford Highway, Atlanta. 404-633-6655, panahar.com. $-$$

Is it possible for food to taste like home, even if you have never been to the place where the food is from?

I have never been to Vietnam, but a bowl of pho dac biet comforts me and warms me, not unlike like the smoked turkey gumbo that my mother makes in Louisiana.

Buford Highway has long been Atlanta’s haunt for these tastes of home, especially if home happens to be far, far away. When the weather turns cold, I lately find myself driving up that road toward a fluorescent sign that reads “BANGLADESHI RESTAURANT,” looking for another bowl of halim.

Halim is common throughout South Asia and the Middle East, and the variations are as many as Buford Highway is long, though lentils and meat are the typical backbones of the dish.

Rehana Begum, the chef at Purnima, serves an uncommonly spicy halim of slow-cooked lentils and bird’s eye chili studded with a few pieces of tender beef. It arrives at the table still steaming, thick with heat and spice. Just a spoonful can break the chill in my bones. The whole bowl is fortifying enough to send me back into the cold.

Purnima opened last year at the far end of a strip mall on Buford Highway. Inside, a big flat-screen TV is usually tuned to a cricket match happening somewhere far away. Men dressed in black slacks and pressed shirts dote helpfully on tables, bringing bottles of water and cold glasses if you happen to bring in your own beer or wine. Some nights, you may notice more delivery orders coming and going than customers inside.

Bangladeshi cuisine shares much with the more familiar staples of Indian food, though one of the more notable distinctions between the two is a matter of religion. In most of India, where Hindu beliefs grant cows a status as sacred animals, beef has never been a common item on menus. In the predominantly Islamic country of Bangladesh, beef is not unusual. Just don’t expect pork.

Much of Purnima’s menu is devoted to meats stewed in familiar sauces with unfamiliar spellings: tikka moshol-la, vindaloo, korma. If chicken tikka moshol-la is what you’re craving, Purnima’s version is fine, though nothing to write home about. I would avoid the quail — too tough and bony to eat with any pleasure.

I was much more compelled by the decadent, coconut-milk richness of beef korma, a cool antidote to the spicy halim, or the gamy combination of bone-in goat with spicy vindaloo, rich with ginger and cinnamon, and wafting with the aroma of cardamom and tumeric.

These dishes come with outlandishly generous portions of rice, though I must recommend a plate of garlic naan, charred and crispy on the bottom and pillowy soft on top. If you order anything like me, your table soon will be covered with little ramekins of chutney, boats of curry, platters of rice and naan. I’ve never been able to finish everything on the table.

Among the vegetables, the begoon bhorta is bewitching, a stew of eggplant and tomato spiked with an earthy blend of spices that I couldn’t quite identify. (I tried calling Begum to ask more about the preparation of the dishes, but she speaks primarily Bengali. I didn’t learn much.)

The heat can be uneven — and sometimes astounding if you’re the type to encourage the kitchen to go for extra spicy food — but nothing that a sweet bowl of coconut soup (rich with curry leaf but a tad too sweet by itself) or a cold beer can’t resolve.

Speaking of beer, the food here is very well suited to it. There’s no fee for corkage, which makes the BYO policy particularly inviting (and cheap). It is easy for me to imagine two dudes accompanied by a growler of Sweetwater Second Helping happily gorging on plates of golden fried pakoras doused in sweet and spicy combinations of red chutney and green raita, and chicken wings served atomic tandoori red and falling off the bone. (Easy, because I’ve done just that.)

Authentic? Inauthentic? I don’t particularly care. Purnima serves warming food, full of the comforts of home, wherever that might be.